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Week
of August 14 |
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Friday, August 18, 2006
Financial Fol-de-rol
Relativity
Redefined? Three years ago a Russian mathematician named Grigory
Perelman proposed the solution to a famous mathematical puzzle
called the Poincaré Conjecture, having to do with the nature of
space. Other scientists have recently proved his solution. Solving
this puzzle represents a giant mental leap for mankind, the
practical ramifications of which will be played out for decades to
come. Going to the person who solved the puzzle is a $1 million
prize offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass.
Should they decide that Perelman deserves the award, they will have
to find the man, a recluse of sorts with little interest in a piece
of paper with six zeros behind the number 1. Meanwhile, this week,
an 11-year-old singer named Bianca Ryan won a million-dollar prize
on the TV show America’s Got Talent. That the achievements of
both are valued at $1 million either proves or disproves Einstein’s
Theory of Relativity. I’m not sure which, but I’ll offer a $1 prize
to anyone who can figure it out.
Is
40 the New 20?
Three stars, 20-something Emmy Rossum, 30-something Eva Longoria and
40-something Sheryl Crow, grace the September cover of Glamour
magazine, placed there to represent three women who “look & feel
sexy at 20, 30, 40.” The trio could be triplets, born on the same
day. There’s not a wrinkle among them. Is this a case of airbrushing
working its magic? If so, why would Glamour do that?
The point would have been made far more convincingly if the cover
had shown three women who look like they’re getting better as
they grow older.
Coming Soon to a Supermarket Near You: Ads imprinted on the conveyor
belts at the checkout counter, reports Ad Age. Kroger Stores
are the first to test the new ad medium. This seems like odd product
placement to me. By the time we get to the checkout counter, we’ve
already made our purchases for the week. Are we going to run back to
get something we forgot and risk the disgruntled stares and comments
of the shoppers behind us? Call me a coward, but count me out!
Enough silliness: I’ll return next week with the top six catch-up
strategies for people who’ve procrastinated about building a nest
egg for retirement.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Thursday, August 17, 2006
Your Choice
In my travels online this week, I
stumbled upon a page that has the broadest range of financial
calculators imaginable. Want to know which makes more financial
sense—buying a new or used car? What your business is worth today?
Am I better off refinancing? How long will it take to pay off a
loan, or my credit card debt? How much do fees affect the return of
my mutual fund? All of this and more can be figured out by crunching
the numbers in one of Choose to Save’s financial calculators, found
at
www.choosetosave.org/calculators/. Besides the 100+ free
calculators you’ll find there, you can also view the organization’s
Emmy-winning inspirational and often amusing public-service
announcements online, get savings tips and order a free “My Money”
tool kit there.
Choose to Save is a national, nonprofit,
public-service program developed by the Employee Benefit Research
Institute (EBRI). Its goal is to “utilize the power of the media to
promote the idea that saving today is vital to a secure financial
future.” Considering that our national savings rate is in the
negative numbers, this site should be bookmarked on everyone’s
Favorites list.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Treat Your Man to Dinner—Out—Tonight
The numbers have been crunched and the envelope opened: the Happy
Homemaker Award goes to … men, who have more than doubled the amount
of time they spend each week doing housework from 1968 to 1985.
Since then, they appear to have gotten tired or bored (don’t we know
the feeling?); they’ve drawn a line in the dust on the coffee table
at 10.2 hours per week, up from 4.4 hours 17 years earlier. Women,
meanwhile, have cut back by 50 percent the time they spend cooking
and cleaning, from 31.9 hours down to 20.4 per week.
That’s
the good news; women
still do 63 percent of the household work, according to data
released late last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This and other news items related to women’s lives can
be found on Ms. Magazine’s
Feminist News
Wire. Stay informed and support women’s rights around the
world by signing up for the news wire’s free weekly newsletter.
There you’ll learn that thousands of South African women will be
re-enacting a historic march through South Africa’s capital,
Pretoria, today, honoring the 20,000 women who marched against
apartheid 50 years ago, and that the United Nations may consider a
proposal to create a new multilateral agency for women next month.
Go there and to other sites devoted to women’s rights
around the world often (add
www.unifem.org to your Favorites list, while you’re at it), and
you’ll develop a strong sense of belonging to a global sisterhood.
You’ll feel the power of women’s hearts and minds working towards
peace and equality and children’s health and happiness around the
world. It’s the same kind of feeling you get when you attend a
women’s conference. I can remember walking into a room full of women
(and one brave man) at such a conference a few years ago and feeling
the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The sense of
empowerment and belonging and pride—and hope for the world—was
palpable. Tap into it.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Listen Hard for the Faint Sound of
Glass Ceilings Cracking All Over the Land
There was good
news for businesswomen yesterday: PepsiCo named a female CEO,
50-year-old chief financial officer Indra Nooyi, to replace outgoing
CEO 58-year-old Steven Reinemund, who is retiring to spend more time
with his family. Nooyi becomes the 12th female CEO
currently leading a Fortune 500 company, according to various
sources. This is particularly heartening, coming on the high heels
of a report last week stating that at almost half of the top
business schools in this country fewer women will make up the class
of 2007 than were in the class of 2003.
Catalyst (www.catalyst.org),
a nonprofit organization that tracks women’s progress in business,
recently released its “2005 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate
Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500,” which reports that,
“between 2002 and 2005, the percentage of corporate officer
positions held by women increased by a total of just 0.7 percentage
points to 16.4 percent. Women held 6.4 percent of top earner
positions, up 1.2 percentage points from 2002.” It’s that kind of
slow progress that may explain the drop in women’s enrollment in biz
schools.
It will take
many more women cracking the “glass ceiling” before we can raise our
glasses in a rousing toast to women’s parity.
Rather than wait, many women are leaving corporate America to look
for more satisfying work elsewhere. The more patient among them wait
until retirement to launch second careers, and then they blossom.
One woman I know, Victoria Secunda, is exploring new aspects of her
creativity, metamorphosing, just as a caterpillar becomes a
butterfly, from award-winning journalist to landscape consultant, or
as she likes to be called, “gardening tutor.” Visit her new Web
site,
www.gardeningtutor.com, and don’t miss her
“Gallery”
of photos, an eye-pleasing, soul-satisfying, restful online
destination, which I can’t resist calling “Victoria’s Secret
Garden.” After you’ve sat a spell there, head on over to her
“Articles” page and read an excellent piece, “Investing in
the Garden,” which reveals just how much attractive landscaping can
increase the value of your home. You’ll be surprised! I was.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Monday, August 14, 2006
Free Laughs and a Shrink’s Marching
Orders: Give Yourself a Break Today!
According to the Families and Work
Institute, American workers get an average 16.6 paid vacation days a
year, but 36 percent of employees don’t plan to use all of them. The
reasons for this range from fear of falling behind in the
competitive race to the corner office— and of the enormous amount of
work that piles up when you do go away—to the fact that even when
you do take a break, you’re still tied to your co-workers by cell
phone, fax, PDA and laptop—even on the beach. Others, frankly, may
prefer to take their vacation pay in the form of cold hard cash and
skip the days off because they need the extra money to make ends
meet.
So why bother? We asked clinical
psychologist Dr. Marcia Eckerd, who used to write “The Working Mom’s
Shrink” column in MAKING BREAD magazine, to tell us why it’s
important to give yourself a break at least once a year—even if you
love your job and your boss.
CLICK HERE for
her great advice, plus her suggestions for “How to Take a Vacation
Without Leaving Home” if you can’t afford the real thing.
My favorite way of taking a daily break
is getting some free giggles by launching “The Cartoon Channel” at
www.newyorker.com. You’ll find the link at the bottom of the
site’s home page. Click on it and a pop-up screen opens up. Presto!
One of those droll New Yorker cartoons we all read that magazine for
rotates every 30 seconds until you’ve had enough. Like a box of
chocolates, a little goes a long way.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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If you like the blog, you’ll love the book.
For more savvy
finance advice, buy
“Making Bread: The
Ultimate Financial Guide for Women Who Need Dough,”
by Gail Harlow and Elizabeth Lewin, available on
Amazon.com and at your local bookstore |
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